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Organizational Work-Life Initiatives: Context Matte rs. France Compared to the UK and the US

Ariane OLLIER-MALATERRE

Rouen Business School

[email protected]

Manuscript published in

Community, Work and Family Volume 12, Issue 2 May 2009 , pages 159 - 178

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a911043623

Abstract

Why are organizational work-life initiatives endorsed in some countries such as the US or the

UK, while they generate little interest in France and other non Anglo-Saxon environments? In

a qualitative theory-building approach, this article assesses the gap in workplace practices

adoption among the US, the UK and France and analyzes in-depth interviews with 44 HR

officers, employee representatives, unions and work-life service providers in France. Five

main factors explain the adoption of organizational work-life initiatives in France and

potentially other countries: (1) Employers versus State's legitimacy in the nonwork sphere of

life (2) industrial relations and unions' stance towards work-life practices (3) the complexity

of the legal framework (4) the awareness of work-life issues within HR departments and (5)

the framing of work-life as a business or a social issue. With reference to prior research, a

model is built to account for the influence of the national context on employees' expectations

and employers' leeway at the macro level, and for strategic choices made by employers at the

meso level.

Keywords: France, Global work-life strategy, International work-life, Multinational

enterprises, Work-family

Acknowledgements

This manuscript benefited greatly from the careful reviews of Maurice Thévenet, Anca Metiu

and two anonymous reviewers. Previous versions were presented at the IESE International

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International Center of Work and Family conference as well as the Center on Aging & Work

at Boston College and the IWER seminar at MIT: I want to thank in particular Anne Bardoel,

Ellen Galinsky, Brad Harrington, Tom Kochan, Ellen Kossek, Donna Lero, Sue Lewis, Paul

Osterman, Michael Piore and Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes for their generous comments.

Biographical note

Ariane OLLIER-MALATERRE is an Associate Professor at Rouen Business School, France.

This research is based on her PhD dissertation at ESSEC Business School and CNAM

University, and post-doctoral research at Boston College. Her research interests include

employers’ and employees’ perceptions of organizational work-life initiatives, and their

outcomes on the employer-employee relationship. A manuscript entitled “Contributions of

Work-Life and Resilience Initiatives to the Individual/Organization Relationship” received the

Best Paper Award of the Academy of Management 2008, OB division.

Résumé

Pourquoi les pratiques d’harmonisation travail - hors-travail (work-life initiatives) sont-elles

développées chez les employeurs américains et britanniques, alors qu’elles suscitent peu

d’intérêt en France et dans d’autres pays non Anglo-Saxons ? Dans une approche qualitative,

d’élaboration de théorie, cet article évalue le différentiel d’adoption des pratiques par les

employeurs aux Etats-Unis, au Royaume-Uni et en France, puis analyse des entretiens semi-

structurés approfondis avec 44 responsables RH, représentants des salariés, syndicalistes et

prestataires de services liés au hors-travail, en France. Cinq principaux facteurs expliquent le

degré d’adoption des pratiques d’harmonisation travail - hors-travail en France et

potentiellement dans d’autres pays : (1) la légitimité des employeurs par rapport à l'Etat, dans

le domaine du hors-travail (2) les relations industrielles et la position des syndicats sur ces

pratiques (3) la complexité du cadre législatif (4) la connaissance qu’ont les responsables RH

de l'enjeu et des pratiques d'harmonisation et (5) l’ interprétation sociale ou économique qui

est faite de ces pratiques. En s’appuyant sur les travaux antérieurs, cet article propose un

modèle qui rend compte de l’influence du contexte national sur les attentes des salariés et sur

la marge de manœuvre des employeurs, au niveau macro, ainsi que sur les choix stratégiques

opérés par les employeurs, au niveau méso.

Mots clés : France, Multinationales, Politique RH de conciliation/harmonisation, Travail –

hors-travail, Work-life

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Introduction

Why are Human Resources practices readily adopted in some countries, and disregarded in

others? This article focuses on organizational work-life initiatives, understood as formal

policies and informal arrangements allowing employees to manage their roles, responsibilities

and interests in their life as whole persons, engaged in work and nonwork domains. Nonwork

notably encompasses the family, the community, friendships, personal development and life-

long training projects, political, associative, spiritual and sports activities, and leisure

(Thévenet, 2001). Work-life initiatives at the workplace typically include flexible working

options such as flexible hours, telework, part-time, term-time, job-sharing and time banks, as

well as childcare and eldercare facilities, information or financial support pertaining to the

nonwork sphere of life, and various on-site services. The most advanced practices emphasize

supervisor training and attempts to change the organizational functioning and mindset.

Organizational initiatives originated in Anglo-Saxon countries in the late 1970s. Can they

be implemented in other countries, and how? What factors must be taken into account to

anticipate the way they may be perceived in other countries? Despite a vigorous stream of

research on work-life issues, international studies are still scarce. Some areas such as work-

family conflict are being investigated at the global level (Poelmans, Allen, Spector,

O’Driscoll, Cooper & Sanchez, 2003), but research on the determinants of the adoption of

organizational work-life initiatives has mostly been conducted in and on English-speaking

countries. As stated by Bardoel and de Cieri (2006), research on work-life as a concern for

HRM in a global context has still to be developed. In the recent years, the European

Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EFILWC) initiated an

increasing body of comparative research, notably the Establishment Survey on Working Time

and Work-Life Balance (2004-2005). Yet, with the notable exceptions of Evans (2001) and

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den Dulk (2005), current knowledge on the adoption of organizational work-life practices is

restrained to a single-country context, mostly the United States. A limited set of factors have

been found to impact the level and nature of the practices adopted: (1) Company size (Bond,

Galinsky, Kim & Brownfield, 2005; den Dulk, 2005; Evans, 2001; Goodstein, 1994; Ingram

& Simons, 1995; Tremblay, 2004), (2) industry (Goodstein, 1994; Ingram & Simons, 1995;

Tremblay, 2004; Wood, de Menezes & Lasaosa, 2003), (3) geographical region (Friedman,

2001; Morgan & Milliken, 1992) (4) proportion of women in executive, management and

professional positions (Bond & Galinsky, 1998; Ingram & Simons, 1995), (5) proportion of

qualified workers or knowledge workers (Bond & Galinsky, 1998; Evans, 2001; Konrad &

Mangel, 2000; Guérin, Saint-Onge, Haines, Trottier & Simard, 1997; Osterman, 1995) and (6)

need to foster a high level of commitment (Budd et Mumford, 2006; Evans, 2001;

Osterman,1995). Other determinants that are found in some studies but not others are public-

sector and unionization (Dex & Scheibl 1999; Evans, 2001; Guérin & al. 1997; Ingram &

Simons, 1995; Wood & al., 2003; Woodland, Simmonds, Thornby, Fitzgerald & McGee,

2003). Table 1 summarizes these findings.

=== Insert Table 1 about here ===

Only two of these sixteen studies are comparative; they include a limited number of

countries. Both underline that the institutional environment does influence the adoption of HR

practices and call for additional international research. Furthermore, the

convergence/divergence debate in HRM has made clear that comparative perspective is

crucial to analyze the determinants of any HR practices adoption (Brewster, 1999), and work-

life researchers have stressed the need for a multi-level approach focusing on both workplace

initiatives and national contexts (Lambert & Kossek, 2005).

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Therefore, this article sets out to analyze the way the national context shapes the adoption

and nature of work-life practices in a given country. The starting point is a comparison of

work-life practices adoption among French, British and American employers. The scarcity of

work-life employer initiatives in France, compared with the US and the UK, is exposed and

explained. France is an ideal polar case compared with Anglo-Saxon countries: international

classifications consistently oppose French Welfare State to a more liberal Anglo-Saxon model

(Anxo & O'Reilly, 2000; Esping-Andersen, 1990; Letablier, 1995). Typically, the French

socialist laws setting the regular duration of the workweek to 35 hours for employees in

organizations of more than twenty employees, in 1998 and 2000, have sparked a heated

debate on the role of public policy in regulating employment (Estevao & Sa, 2007). The US

has been a pioneer country for work-life practices for the last fourty years. The UK is a very

interesting partner for comparison because the UK shares a liberal perspective with the US

but has to comply with European regulations, although it has long stayed out of the social

chapter. Including the UK helps design a framework that includes different shades of grey.

While this research compares three countries, it is not limited to these countries. Exploring

why global work-life strategies cannot be transferred to France as such is paramount to

understanding the necessary adjustments in any non Anglo-Saxon environment.

Work-life balance is a major issue in France and in Europe. The 2000 European Union's

Lisbon Strategy is to become "the world's most dynamic and competitive economy" by 2010.

To accomplish this and strengthen the European social model, higher employment levels are

needed. Specific targets were established: 70% of the whole population, 60% of women and

50% of seniors in the workforce by 2010. In the context of an aging workforce and of

growing needs for care, that women still mostly assume, great efforts are required in the fields

of gender equality, distribution of time over the life course and quality of life (EFILWC,

2003). Therefore, work-life balance is more than ever on the agenda of social policy makers.

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Work-life balance is also an endless quest for citizens in Europe. More than in the US, an

enjoyable work-life balance and the ability to take time off from work contribute to social

status (Guillen, 2006). The need for work-life balance is particularly salient in France and the

UK because of the high fertility rates: 1,9 and 1,8 children per woman, while the average in

Europe is 1,4 (Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, 2007). These

rates compare with the US one of just under 2 children per woman (Nyce, 2007). In France,

although the 35 hour week has been said to fulfil the need for work-life balance, this is not the

case for most employees. These laws were designed to fight unemployment, not to enhance

the quality of life (Fagnani & Letablier, 2004; Buffier-Morel, 2007). While the 35 hour week

improves work-life balance for exempt employees who often work 50 to 60 hours a week but

get more vacation time (Alis & Dumas, 2005), it means more employer-driven flexibility for

unqualified workers: longer days at work with free time in the middle of the day, useless for

family or personal purposes (Méda & Orain, 2002). Employers can and do require overtime

hours, in line with the controversial motto of the current government "Work more to earn

more". Hence, it is no wonder that work-life balance remains a high concern and priority in

recent surveys in France (Alis & Dumas, 2005).

In this context, how can we explain the weak prevalence of organizational work-life

initiatives in France, even in subsidiaries of Anglo-Saxon multinationals? Surveys conducted

at the national level in the US (Bond & al., 2005), the UK (Hayward, Fong & Thornton, 2007)

and France (Carré, Dauplait, de Cledat, Lefevre, Noël, Pailhé, Papadopoulos, Quaglia,

Ragazzi, Razafindratsia, Solaz & Vichneskaia, 2005) point to a gap in the adoption of

organizational work-life initiatives in France, as illustrated in Figure 1. The surveys were

focused on similar initiatives and conducted on reasonably similar samples of large

organizations (2673 worksites of more than 20 employees in France, 1092 employers of more

than 50 employees in the US and 1462 employers of more than 5 employees in the UK).

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=== Insert Figure 1 about here ===

As many as 70% of American and 67% of British employers state that flexible hours are

available for employees, compared with only 36% of French employers. The same pattern

prevails for home working on a regular basis: 35% of American and 26% of British

employers compared with 10% of French employers. The gap in practices adoption is also

observed for part-times (although the French survey asks about employee-chosen part-times

as opposed to employer-driven part-times) and on-site daycare centers. It is very enlightening

to note that job shares, compressed workweeks, resources and referrals related to early

childhood and seminars on personal matters are so scarce in France that the survey has not

even asked these about them. Yet, there is no public policy or provision available as a

substitute, as is the case for vacation and parental leaves. Triangulation with other data

sources such as the previously cited EFILWC Establishment Survey and an analysis of all

corporate websites and official reports of companies composing similar stock exchange

indexes in the three countries confirms the much lesser level of practices adoption in France

(Ollier-Malaterre, 2008). Intent to demonstrate best practices is also weak: the Great Place to

Work Institute in France indicates that only 52 organizations have applied to appear in their

2005 ranking. Most of them are the French subsidiaries of foreign multinationals.

Methods

Because of the scarce knowledge on organizational work-life practices adoption in France,

this research takes a qualitative and inductive stance, with a theory-building objective. The

starting point was the data, but previous research was used to shape the theoretical "skeleton"

of the exploration (Kelle, 1997).

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In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 44 people in 2005-2006, lasting

an average of 75 minutes. To obtain the interviews, a personalized request was sent by email

with follow-up as necessary. Further contacts were asked to the first interviewees and selected

according to the sampling strategy, with an overall acceptance rate of 84%. The aim was to

collect different viewpoints inside organizations, to avoid a one-sided perspective: HR and

diversity officers, employee representatives from the unions and the works councils, non-

unionized employees, a nurse and an on-site daycare director. Union officers from national

union federations as well as service providers were included to gain a broader understanding

at the national level. The distribution of the sample is illustrated in table 2. Out of these 44

persons, 29 are women, 15 are men. All are French, except one American citizen.


The 44 interviewees belong to 16 different organizations (not counting the service

providers). Based on the above-mentioned literature on the determinants of adoption, the

organizations were sampled so that they would be contrasted in terms of size, industry,

nationality (subsidiaries from American multinational enterprises were included in a control

perspective) and location of interviewee's workplace. The intent was to include more large

organizations because institutional theory has shown them to be more vulnerable to external

pressures (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). The distribution of organizations’ sample is illustrated

in table 3.


The interview guide was structured around the salience of the work-life issue for the

company, the initiatives adopted or investigated, the actors prone to support or oppose them,

and the environmental factors likely to influence the company's decisions. All interviews were

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tape-recorded and fully transcribed, except for five which were transcribed with the help of

notes and memory right after the interview. Contextual data was also collected through

corporate brochures, web sites and service providers' documentation.

The content analysis followed Miles and Huberman's methodology (1994). An interview

memo was written right away in observance of Eisenhardt's "24 hours rule" (1989, 547). The

transcripts were then carefully read sentence per sentence to produce a "first-level coding",

with the emerging categories being documented in a diary. Intra-coder reliability was checked

by re-coding a sub-sample of interviews after a month. A "pattern coding" analysis was then

conducted using: (1) an horizontal analysis of each interview to track consistent patterns

within the interviews and links between categories and (2) a vertical analysis of each

category, to analyse it and determine its relative salience within the corpus of interviews.

Results

Five main factors emerge from the content analysis. Combined together, they explain the

lesser adoption of organizational work-life initiatives in France. They correspond to the most

salient categories in the coding scheme.

Three of them pertain to the national socio-institutional environment and two to the

organizational level. The three macro factors are: (1) Employer/State legitimacy in the

nonwork sphere of life (2) industrial relations and unions' stance towards work-life practices

and (3) the complexity of the legal framework. The two meso factors are: (4) the awareness

on work-life practices among HR departments and (5) the framing of work-life as a business

or a social issue. This section details the main themes of each factor and illustrates them with

selected verbatim (the original verbatim in French are available upon request).

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(1) Employers/State legitimacy in the nonwork sphere of life. When it comes to support in

the nonwork sphere of life, two main questions may differentiate countries. First, is family

considered a private matter that individuals must take on by themselves or do people have a

"sense of entitlement for support" (Lewis & Smithson, 2001)? Second, who is this support

expected from: the State, the employer, or the community and family (Esping-Andersen,

1990)? In the UK and the US, the family is perceived as a private matter (Kamerman & Kahn,

1997). The community and the family are the preferred support providers, while employers

are also very active (Glass & Fujimoto, 1995). In France, however, the State issues

regulations pertaining to family life. Public provisions for early childhood are extensive

compared with other western countries (subsidized daycare centers and family daycare before

the age of three, public school after that). Employers/State legitimacy is the most salient

category in the interviews. Employers are not perceived as legitimate to address issues

pertaining to the nonwork sphere of life, and they are less legitimate than the Welfare State.

Several themes are highlighted in table 4.


How can these perceptions of the State as the most legitimate source of support, including

in the family domain, be explained in light of the UK and US comparison? In the US, the

unions have observed a low sense of entitlement for support outside of work (Gerstel &

Clawson, 2000). One should be self-reliant and there is even a stigma attached with

governmental support (Bailyn, 1992). American researchers have focused on individual

aspects of work-life rather than contextual factors, as the predominance of role theory shows

(Kossek & Friede, 2006). This is not quite so in the UK. For a long time, social policies have

not considered the family as an appropriate field of action (Daly & Rake, 2003), because the

still persistent breadwinner model entailed a separation of the professional and personal

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spheres of life (Lewis, 1992). But more recently, the Labour government played a major role

in promoting work-life initiatives among employers. In the context of the transition from

welfare to workfare, the 1998 National Childcare Strategy and the 1999 National Strategy for

Carers prepared the ground for the 2000 Work-Life Balance campaign with a budget of over

1.5 million pounds. State intervention in the family is much more evident in France, where the

State has long been collecting statistical data on family topics such as fertility, daycare and

women's paid work (de Singly & Schultheis, 1991). Towards the end of the 19th century,

Durkheim already underlined the growing intervention of the State into families (Lallement,

1993). In France, the State is perceived as bearing a responsibility towards children because

they are future citizens and must be socially integrated (Daly & Rake, 2003).

On the matter of employers' versus State's legitimacy, Tocqueville, as early as 1840,

noticed the mistrust of American citizens towards their government (Segal, 2005), which

Googins sees as rooted in "the original tenets of the founding fathers that a nation governs

best which governs least" (1994, 202). It is so engraved in the American Constitution and the

Bill of Rights that even the experience of welfare capitalism and the New Deal could not

foster a new social contract (ibid.). The State's legitimacy is greater in the UK, but employer

initiatives are favoured over public provisions. In France however, the ideas of the French

Revolution of equality and solidarity are still vivid, implying that only the State, through its

elected representatives, can act towards common good (Lamont, 1995). All bodies preventing

a direct relationship between the citizen and the State are subject to mistrust (ibid.). The rise

of the Welfare State in the last decades of the 19th century as well as a very negative image of

paternalism also contribute to the better legitimacy of the State in France (de Bry, 1980).

Religious backgrounds probably explain a crucial difference between countries imprinted

by the ideas of the Reform on the one part, and France, that is mostly catholic, on the other

(d'Iribarne, 2002). In Reform countries, wealth and virtue are perceived as compatible, and

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morality obeys to similar laws in the professional and private spheres. Hence organizations

are seen as moral communities as well as businesses, and "ethical actors" (ibid.). In France

however, morality and economic interest are seen as divergent. An image of private

employers as "cold monsters deprived of honor (…) and clearly on the side of interest"

(d'Iribarne, 2002, 34) undermines their legitimacy beyond the strict professional sphere. This

explains the partial rejection of American and British codes of conduct and whistle blowing

policies. Thus, employer support for life outside of work, other than through the collection of

taxes, may generate fears on the part of employees (Barel & Frémeaux, 2005).

(2) Industrial relations and unions' stance towards work-life practices. Two characteristics

of industrial relations have been identified as fostering the adoption of work-life practices.

The first is a collaborative climate between the unions, the employers and the government

(Guillen, 1994), and the second one is active pressures from the unions (Drago & Fazioli,

2003). British and American unions gradually became interested in work-life (Dones &

Firestein, 2002; Morris & Pillinger, 2006). How does this differ in France? Industrial relations

are the second most salient factor in the analysis, with several themes summarized in table 5

and further explained below.


The works councils were created in 1945 by an anti-paternalistic law that made

management transfer their social works budgets to an employee-elected body, in

organizations with more than fifty employees. Employees are therefore represented by the

works councils and the unions' representatives. Management tends to not engage in work-life

because they consider it to be a family issue, hence the responsibility of works councils who

have their own budget. Yet, most works councils focus on subsidized trips and summer

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camps, or coupons for leisure and early childhood, rather than flexible working arrangements

or flexible career systems. As for the unions, despite interesting experiments by local union

representatives, most of them are suspicious of flexible working practices. The national

agreement signed on telework in November 2005 is typical of a their defensive stance: it

focuses on protecting workers from increased employer requirements and intrusion in the

private sphere of life and barely mentions any benefit for the employee or the employer.

Prior research converges with this analysis. Certainly, the climate can not be described as

collaborative in any of the three countries (Anxo & O'Reilly, 2000; Edwards, Hall, Hyman,

Marginson, Sisson, Waddington, & Winchester, 1992; Slomp, 1995). But Slomp too has

observed that the nationally- and industry-centralized structure of the unions slows initiatives

down in France. And Silvera (2006) explains that most French unions see flexible working as

an attempt from employers to further improve productivity at the expense of workers.

(3) The complexity of the legal framework. The legal framework, including the tax

system, has been shown to have contradictory effects on HR practices adoption. On the one

hand, coercive pressures (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) such as compliance with the law and tax

incentives increase the level of practices adoption. A generous platform of rights also

enhances employees' sense of entitlement (EFILWC, 2003). On the other hand, the

complexity and inflexibility of a legal framework can discourage HR officers from launching

initiatives (Gooderham, Nordhaug & Ringdal, 1999).

In this sample, both encouraging and dissuasive effects are mentioned but the latter

predominates. Tax incentives for on-site daycare centers and services for employees, as voted

by the Conférence de la Famille in 2003 and the Borloo Act in 2005 encourage organizations

to adopt work-life practices. Governmental pressure on public and recently privatized large

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companies is also strong. But the refraining aspect of the heavy legislation is the one

mentioned by most interviewees, as illustrated in table 6.


This concurs with Gooderham and his colleagues (1999) who argue that French HR

officers are experts, kept busy by operational constraints such as compliance with a stratified

legislation and the necessity to monitor on-going relationships with the unions, the works

councils and official authorities as the Inspection du travail. Their counterparts in the UK tend

to adopt more "collaborative" practices because they act as facilitators focused on training,

communication, and alignment of HR strategy with the global business strategy.

(4) Awareness of work-life practices within HR departments: a good number of issues

compete for managers' attention when they scan their environment (Milliken, Dutton &

Beyer, 1990). HR officers act as "gate keepers" for the company, in the sense that they are the

ones capable of identifying a new issue, gathering knowledge and finally "selling" it to top

management (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). As far as HRM practices are concerned, France has

been termed a "cultural island", distinct from the "Anglo-American business culture"

(Sparrow, Schuler & Jackson, 1994, 279). It is therefore possible that HR tend to have a less

systematic knowledge gathering process. This is confirmed in the interviews, as shown in

table 7.


(5) Framing of work-life as a business or a social issue: once they have scanned their

environment and identified a salient issue, HR officers "make sense" of it. They investigate

four main questions (Milliken & al., 1990): do work-life practices have a business impact; are

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they for women or all employees; is it the company's responsibility to act in this area; and can

they be linked with other current HR issues? Several themes underlining the social rather than

economic framing of these practices in France are illustrated in table 8.


A more vivid Marxist tradition in France may explain the social interpretation

(Gooderham & al., 1999), as may also the tendency of French people to differentiate between

the "logic of honor" and inferior business interests (d'Iribarne, 2002). However, the framing of

work-life as a social issue reduces the adoption of work-life initiatives. In the US, they have

reached a momentum when they have been considered as a global competitive issue, fully

integrated with other HR policies as well as transversal issues such as gender and diversity,

rather than just a child care issue (Friedman & Galinksy, 1992). Indeed, the business language

fosters practice adoption (Friedman & Kossek, 2002; Lee, MacDermid, Williams, Buck &

Leiba-O’Sullivan, 2002), even though some researchers call for a recasting of work-life as a

corporate social responsibility issue (Pitt-Catsouphes & Googins, 2005). In the UK, too, the

business case has been articulated by governmental publications such as Work-Life Balance,

Changing patterns in a changing world (Department for Education and Employment, 2000).

Also, resistances arise when an issue is seen as a women's problem (Kraut, 1990).

Discussion

As measured by national studies and observed from a qualitative perspective, French

organizations adopt less work-life practices than their British and American counterparts.

This can be explained by:

(1) At the macro level: a weaker legitimacy of French employers in the nonwork domain,

compared with the Welfare State in France, and with British and American employers;

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uncooperative industrial relations that curb dialogue and initiatives, all the more than work-

life is a low priority for most unions; and a complex legal framework which dissuades HR

officers from engaging in new practices.

(2) At the meso level: weaker awareness and expertise on work-life practices; and an

interpretation of the practices as benefits for the employees or a social issue in connection

with diversity, equal opportunities and corporate social responsibility.

The results of the analysis underline two major considerations, which may seem

antagonist at first. The first one is the weight of the socio-institutional environment in which

organizations evolve, at the macro level. As institutional theories have shown (DiMaggio &

Powell, 1983), the macro environment shapes employers' actions through coercive pressures

(legislation, cultural expectations), mimetic pressures (successful organizations and

competitors) and normative pressures (professional standards). The second consideration is

that each company makes strategic choices, through an on-going interpretation or "sense

making" process of its environment (Daft & Weick, 1984). To adapt to change in the

environment and institutional pressures, each company decides whether or not to adopt

specific HR practices, such as work-life practices. The decision process of a given company

follows three analytical steps which in reality may overlap: (1) scanning, (2) interpretation,

and (3) learning (Milliken & al., 1990). Two of them were illustrated in this research.

While these two perspectives do rely on different epistemological positions, their

combination has proved extremely heuristic (Milliken & al., 1990; den Dulk, 2005).

Therefore, a two-level perspective, macro and meso, may be embraced in an attempt to build

an explanatory model. This model explains the level of adoption of organizational work-life

initiatives in a country, based on France, and is illustrated by Figure 2.

=== Insert Figure 2 about here ====

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Although this article has described the five factors separately, there are of course

numerous interactions between them. The most important is that macro factors influence

meso factors. For instance, HR knowledge of work-life practices is weak because they do not

systematically gather information or attend practitioners conferences on this topic (meso

level), but also because the focus on the State as preferred support provider undermines

employees' requests, political debate on employers' contribution to work-life and the

development of specialized service providers (macro level). This interaction is visualized by

an arrow in Figure 2. A feedback effect from meso to macro may be observed in countries

where work-life initiatives are well developed: adoption by leading employers may raise

expectations among employees of other organizations, modify the perception of employers'

role towards life outside of work and open a market for service providers. This is not the case,

yet, in France.

Interactions are also found inside each level. At the macro level, the strong legitimacy of

the State explains the abundance of regulations, while it is nurtured by uncooperative

industrial relations. At the meso level, the social interpretation of work-life initiatives is due

to the antagonist employee-employer relationship (macro influence) and to lack of

information on the initiatives and how they can benefit the employer (meso influence).

This model emphasizes a contextualist approach of HRM, considering the embeddedness

of HR practices in their context (Brewster, 1999). From an epistemological standpoint, it

subscribes to the multi-level thinking known as "effet sociétal" (Maurice, Sellier & Silvestre,

1982): the intrinsic coherence created and nurtured by interactions between the macro, meso

and micro levels in each country. This approach is particularly relevant in a field where social

policies at the macro level, corporate practices at the meso level and individual needs and

expectations at the micro level are closely interlinked (Bardoel & de Cieri, 2006).

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This article makes several contributions in the field of international work-life research. It

provides rich information about the French context and the stance of various interlocutors

(HR officers, unions, works councils, service providers) towards work-life practices. There is

very little research on organizational work-life practices in France, except for the surge of

interest for the 35 hours law, and the depth of the information gathered adds value both for

researchers and practitioners.

Moreover, this research is in no way specific to France, the UK and the US: it can be

generalized and used as a theoretical tool to conduct research in other countries. Apart from

Poelmans and Sahibzada's multilevel framework (2004), which was of prime interest for this

research but has not yet been empirically validated, there is not much research combining a

comparative perspective and a multi-level approach. This article clarifies the most salient

factors determining organizational work-life practices adoption in a given country. To HR

practitioners, the model provides a deeper understanding of why a given practice is welcomed

or not in a given country, and why it is efficient or not. A particular attention needs to be

directed towards the macro environment of organizations which shapes employees and

union's expectations as well as HR officer's leeway. This can hopefully contribute to achieve a

more relevant endorsement of HR global strategies within multinational enterprises.

Limits of this research pertain to data collection and methodology. First, the sample used

to test the model is predominantly French and this choice limits the validity of the

comparative analysis. Secondly, the content analysis was performed by a single coder. To

address this, rigorous tracking methods were adopted such as a category diary with explicit

categories definitions and memos detailing changes in the coding scheme. Lastly, the

qualitative methodology does not allow for a validation of the propositions at a large scale.

The contribution of this paper is to build a theoretical framework which can be further

validated. This methodology makes sense given the scarcity of previous comparative research

19/36

and the complexity of the research question raised in this paper, involving two levels of

analysis and three countries (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Furthermore, it is very valuable in a

context of an existing research which relies almost exclusively on quantitative design

(Poelmans, O'Driscoll & Beham, 2005).

Future research is needed to validate and enrich the model. The model would also benefit

from an extension to other countries, in particular from other continents. More generally, the

multi-level approach should be encouraged in future research in the work-life field, for the

unique insights it yields on new practice adoption and effectiveness.

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TABLE 1

Study Sample Determinants of work-life practices adoption

Morgan & Milliken, 1992

The US - 175 answers to questionnaires sent to HR officers

Company size, region, industry.Not significant for proportion of women nor unionization.

Goodstein, 1994The US - 1239 organizations, subsample from a US Department of Labor study

Company size, region, industry, private sector cost/benefits perception, available expertise, women's unemployment.

Ingram & Simons, 1995

The US - replicate Goodstein, 1994 on the National Organizations Study data : 688 workplaces, phone interviews with HR officers

Company size, proportion of women managers, women's unemployment, industry, public sector.Not significant for total proportion of women nor absenteeism rate.

Osterman, 1995The US - 875 workplaces with more than 50 employees, from Dun & Bradstreet

High-commitment systems, professionals.Not significant for unionization.

Guérin, St Onge, Haines, Trottier & Simard, 1997

Québec - 301 organizations, 236 with more than 250 employees

Unionization public sector and company size. Organizational culture, proportion of women in the qualified workforce.

Bond & Galinsky, 1998 (FWI)

The US - 1057 employers of more than 100 employees ; stratified sample, phone interviews with HR officers+B35

Company size, proportion of executive women, of professionals, of part-time employees, unionization, recent history of restructuring.

Dex & Scheibl, 1999

The UK, after data analyzed by Forth et al (1997)

Large unionized public-sector company.

Konrad & Mangel, 2000

The US - 195 large companies (average of 16 000 employees)

Company size, proportion of women and of professionnals, service industry.

Evans, 2001Analysis of national surveys in Australia, Japan, the UK and the US

Company size, public sector, porportion of qualified employees, employees' tenure, gender equality agreements, high-commitment systems.Importance of welfare regime, women's labour market participation, family role.

Friedman, 2001The US – Data collected by Galinsky et Bond (2000)

Company size, industry, porportion of women.

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TABLE 1 (Continued)

Study Sample Determinants of work-life practices adoption

Woodland & al., 2003 (DTI)

The UK - 1509 employers with more than 5 employees ; stratified sample, phone interviews with HR officers

Company size, unionization, public sector, industry.

Wood & al., 2003

The UK - WERS98 (British Workplace Employee Relations Survey)

FWA : public sector, industry, existence of HR cell, proportion of women. Not significant for unionization, workforce qualification, high-commitment systems, proportion of employees with children, leader's values. Early childhood : company size, public sector, industry, existence of HR cell, proportion of women, leader's values, TQM strategy. Not significant for high-commitment systems, proportion of employees with children.

Tremblay, 2004Canada - Study via a union: 261 union representatives, 163 HR officers

Public sector, service industry, knowledge orientation.Not significant for company size and proportion of women.

den Dulk, 2005

Phone interviews with HR officers of service sector employers with more than 100 employees: 95 in Italy, 113 in the Netherlands, 100 in Sweden and 67 the UK+B17

Company size. Not significant for proportion of women, of women managers, of fixed-termed contracts.More employer variance in countries with less statutory public provisions.Importance of public provisions, expectations towards the State, employers and the family as support providers, labour market.

Bond & al., 2005 (FWI)

The US - 1092 employers with more than 50 employeesStratified sample, phone interviews with HR officers

Company size (practices differ with size).

Budd & Mumford, 2006

The UK - WERS98 (British Workplace Employee Relations Survey). Matching of employees and supervisors responses in 1565 companies

Company size, unionization, existence of HR cell, proportion of women, of parents and of employees with work autonomy, workforce qualification.

Sixteen studies on the adoption of organizational work-life initiatives, in chronological order

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TABLE 2

44 interviewees in France

Within companies Human Resources Officers 10

Diversity Officers 5

Union representatives 5

Work council members 5

Non-unionized employees 8

Nurse 1

On-site daycare Director 1

At the national level Service providers 7

National union officers 2

44

Distribution of the sample: Interviewees

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TABLE 3

16 organizations in France

Industry Manufacturing 9

Services 7

Size in France Large companies (> 500 employees) 10

Small and medium (< 500 employees) 6

Location of interviewee worksite Paris region 11

Other regions 5

Nationality French 12

Anglo-Saxon subsidiary in France 4

Distribution of the sample: Organizations

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TABLE 4

1. Employers/State legitimacy in the nonwork sphere of life (in 24 interviews)

a) Employers perceived as pursuing economic interests at the expense of employees; antagonist perception of the employee-employer relationship

"The natural tendency was to say management must not be aware of the life and personal problems of people (…) If we think of the debate on the CPE [contrat première embauche, which allowed employers to hire young people on a two-year fixed-term basis], it struck me to see that one of the selling points against the CPE was "management will use it to fire us", this perception of employers that if we give them a power they will use it against, this I believe is deeply engrained in French people's everyday life." (Works council treasurer)

On-site services make employees wonder about hidden motives or implications on the part of employers

"Ah, there is a grocery shop, so if you don't buy there you get into management's bad books." (Union representative)"I wouldn't like it at all if the company took care of my children." (National union officer)

High sense of entitlement towards State support

A conversation between business developpers at a daycare service provider:"- People expect many free services in France- Yes, but there is this French history linked to the dependency towards the State, we expect everything from the State, social security, services…"

b) Employees' desire to protect their personal life from their employer, manager and colleagues, so that work does not take on their whole life

"Separation of spheres is positive: otherwise, there is no more separation, and you can see right away what might well invade the rest, can't you?" (HR Director)

Employees tend to share little personal information at work and to build friendship and community networks outside work. This contrasts with the US.

"It is a big difference, in the US work takes more time, this notion of hours is less present (…), you make friends at work and you go out with them. Here, we rather have two sides, professional life and personal life, we feel like if we merged the two it would be an imbalance." (Laboratory Director)

c) HR officers very cautious to not be accused of paternalism.French HR in American organizations criticizing headquarters policies as paternalist.

"It would be unwarranted, with respect to business objectives, that is not to be done. (…) We don't have rules on how they must behave. It would be frowned upon." (HR Director)

First factor: Employers/State legitimacy in the nonwork sphere of life

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TABLE 5

2. Industrial relations and unions' stance towards work-life practices (in 20 interviews)

a) Tense climate in France makes HR officers careful and unions suspicious with regards to new practices.HR resort to various strategies such as negotiating at the European level or have more collaborative unions elected.

"You know, I am a union representative, so I think that top management, when they mention something, it's for, generally, their own interests, I don't believe at all to this "I am going to be nice with my employees" stuff." (Union representative)

b) The structure of industrial relations curbs initiatives. Three factors undermine unions' cohesion in France: historical rivalries, a strong centralization that restrains local representatives' leeway and a bipolar structure.

"The problem in France is there are those works councils, this puts a big brake (…). Since the CGT [Confédération Générale du Travail, a communist-inspired union] are in the majority, they think they need to do nothing (…) if it was like in Germany where there is only one union, IG Metall, it would be much better. Now, we still have blood wars, hence it is very difficult in a works council where you have several unions, to find a common ground (…) and also it is a fact that some trade unions are mostly governed by guidelines, the local representative has to consult his trade union in Paris, this also puts a big brake unfortunately." (Union representative)

The social mission of works council is an obstable because they tend to see the central issues of work design and the underlying norms of the ideal worker (Lewis, 1997) as polemic.

"I'm here to manage a works council, not to talk about trade unionism or propaganda." (Works council Secretary General)

c) The general stance in male-led unions is that work-life practices are a women's issue and therefore not high on the agenda.

"They said "oh no, kids", they didn't find that interesting. (…) In our company, the CGT [the majority union], he's more vindictive when we discuss wages, or work organization, the other topics he somehow avoids them." (Union representative)

Second factor: Industrial relations and unions' stance towards work-life practices

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TABLE 6

3. The complexity of the legal framework (in 9 interviews)

Dissuasive effect on initiatives- direct when the 35 hours week impedes negotiations on flexible working arrangements that make work hours more difficult to measure- indirect because of the technical skills and effort required to comply with the legal framework.

"It's more that we apply the law and collective agreements, for family leaves, parental leaves. We are required by law to accept part-times, paternity leaves, we're not in the mindset where we would have specific incentives for that. (…) All the more that we have a 35 hours agreement (…) it's already quite a lot of machinery to handle delicate situations." (HR Director)

Third factor: The complexity of the legal framework

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TABLE 7

4. Awareness of work-life practices within HR departments (in 14 interviews)

a) HR officers are indeed "gate keepers" for work-life practices, in that they select specific practices over others

"For the moment we rule out on-site services because, obviously, it makes people laugh here (…) I have a colleague with a mum who can't live by herself anymore, the social worker just told her she'll have to find a nursing home, that's what really make people anxious, it's not the dry cleaner." (HR Director)

b) Most French HR have a weak knowledge on work-life practices

"ARE YOU AWARE OF WHAT THE OTHER HIGH-TECH COMPANIES DO? No, not yet, because I haven't had any exchange yet (…) Except for the professional press, that's the only way to know what's going on." (HR Director)

Fourth factor: Awareness of work-life practices within HR departments

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TABLE 8

5. Framing of work-life as a business or a social issue (in 19 interviews)

a) French Management views work-life practices as perks, sometimes used in negotiations with the unions (as in the case of worksites relocation). Since no attempt is made to compute a return on investment on what is considered benefits, their cost is dissuasive.

"IS WORK-LIFE BALANCE SOMETHING YOU DISCUSS IN YOUR COMPANY? [sighs] We have family part-times, and the normal benefits of the works council." (HR manager)

Work-life practices also considered to meet diversity and CSR objectives. Unlike in the UK, where organizations develop a business case for CSR, CSR is often held as a superior moral objective in France, disconnected from economic interests.

"AND THIS PROGRAM TO ENHANCE EMPLOYEE HEALTH, WHAT DOES IT DO ON EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT? No it's not our goal, this is public health (…) We are a corporate citizen." (HR Director)

The business interpretation can be found among influencers (service providers and national unions), American subsidiaries and some French HR - all apologize for it.

"When he's going to spend half an hour on the net, if we have services to help him do this, it's time won, productive time concretely (…) The company wants to implement this because they think it's going to improve productivity! I say this a bit abruptly but it's a reality." (CEO, EAP service provider)

"Legitimately, we should support this not only from a social standpoint, but also from an… economic standpoint, in terms of productivity, which is, ugh, very legitimate, I mean HR are not, how can I say, HR are not a union." (HR Director)

b) Work-life practices framed as social because they are seen as a women's issue, linked with recent legislation on Equal Opportunities.

"This topic, conciliation between professional life and personal life, was approached with the logic what can we do for women (…) we decided to gather a group of experienced women managers, all with children, with the question how can we go through the glass ceiling." (HR Director)

Fifth factor: Framing of work-life as a business or a social issue

35/36

FIGURE 1

70%

55%

35%

44% 44%

9%

37%

26%

67%

74%

26%

59%

41%

3%1%

36%

44%

10%

2%

Flexible hours Part time Homeworking Job share Compressed workweek On-site or near-sitedaycare

Resource & Referralsfor childcare

Seminars on family andpersonal matters

% US Employers (FWI, 2005) % UK Employers (DTI, 2007) % French employeurs (INED, 2005)

na na na na na

Organizational work-life initiatives in the US, the UK and France

36/36

FIGURE 2

A two-level model to explain the adoption of organizational work-life initiatives

in a country (France)

Adoption and perceptionof work-life practices in a country (France)

Macro levelSocio-Institutional Context P1 Employer / State legitimacy in the nonwork sphere of lifeP2 Industrial relationsP3 Legal framework

Meso levelIssue Scanning and InterpretationP4 Knowledge on work-life practicesP5 Assessment as a business or social issue

Adoption and perceptionof work-life practices in a country (France)

Macro levelSocio-Institutional Context P1 Employer / State legitimacy in the nonwork sphere of lifeP2 Industrial relationsP3 Legal framework

Meso levelIssue Scanning and InterpretationP4 Knowledge on work-life practicesP5 Assessment as a business or social issue

organizational work-life initiatives: context matte rs ... · organizational work-life initiatives:...

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